By Bisola Adeyemo
Tanzanian Minister of State, Selemani Jaffo, has called on government’s urgent intervention to unravel the cause of pollution of the water in Mara River, which was releasing a bad smell.
The minister of state in the Vice-President’s Office responsible for Environment, stated that some set of experts has to form a team to investigate cases that have led to the contamination in Mara River.
“This alarming situation calls for urgent action by the government in order to know what caused the pollution of the water,” Jaffo said when he inspected the river.
He said the investigative team is comprised of experts from various fields, including rock and chemical experts.
Redempta Samuel, a senior official from the National Environment Management Council (NEMC), said some experts have already collected 32 water samples from the river and Lake Victoria where the river drains its water.
The Mara River basin covers a surface of 13,504 square kilometers of which about 65 percent is located in Kenya and 35 percent in Tanzania.
From its sources in the Kenyan highlands, the river flows for about 395 kilometers draining into Lake Victoria in Tanzania’s Mara region